From beyond the veil
by Wolfkins
Summary: Dolohov pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a searing headache coming on. He was never going to hear the end of this. They had wanted the dark lord, deatheater extraordinaire, but instead he'd brought back a small light haired doll from beyond the veil.
1. Chapter 1

Eleanora heard the voices, three of them at least, chanting the same words over and over and over. She couldn't understand them no matter how hard she concentrated but they called to her nevertheless. She followed the words across the hollows of the grey land, slowly at first, allowing them to gently spur her on but then faster as they became more insistent. Soon Eleanora found herself running across the fog covered ground towards the unknown. The words were foreign, latin perhaps, but somehow she felt certain she was answering a call, though she knew not who's call or even whom they wanted.

It wasn't long before Eleanora discovered where the heavenly call was coming from and when she saw it, she ran harder and faster almost instinctively. It was an enormous black curtain fluttering in a breeze all of its own. Eleanora had never seen such a thing before, not in all the time she'd spent in the void, it had no frame, nothing appeared to be holding it up. It just was. The curtain was torn and ripped in places as if loved and well used and behind it she could see bright, warm looking light filtering through and she wanted it fiercely.

Eleanora pushed herself on, holding up her dress to free her legs and before long she found herself gazing up at the curtain in awe. From there the voices were clearer but she only understood one word...a name she supposed...Riddle.

From the foot of the curtain she could feel the breeze turning into a pull as if a vortex was trying to suck her up inside and for the first time Eleanora wondered if chasing the call had been a mistake. The slight woman fought against it, knowing she didn't belong where she was but also that the voices beyond the curtain weren't calling for her, they wanted someone else. She bit her lip in indecision wondering what to do, torn between her morals and her need. There was no one else around, no others to heed the great call. Would it be such a sin if she were to heed it? Eleanora wanted out, no she needed out, the void had been called home for far too long. It was depressing and desolate and the nature she had so loved and nurtured was nowhere to be seen, it was a veritable hell.

Finally when still no one else had heeded the call Eleanora let the great breeze take her. Her body was lifted up slowly but around her the winds increased two-fold, spinning around her frail limbs. Then the grey fog was all around her and her skin stung from how cold and harsh it was. Before Eleanora knew what was happening, it was creeping down her throat and expanding inside her chest cavity, slowly but surely consuming everything in its path. Then she was coughing and choking as it took hold of her lungs and squeezed. Had this been some trick to send her to her final death? No, no she wasn't giving up! She hadn't the first time, which had been the reason she'd been caught in the void. Eyes wide open, hands clawing at her throat and fighting against death for all she was worth, Eleanora was pulled across the dense air through the heavy black curtain…

* * *

"You said this would work." Thorfinn accused.

"I said I _thought _it would work." Dolohov growled back, his dark eyes flashing angrily. "Clearly it did work in some capacity."

"I told you we should have used Voldemort." Rodolphus added blandly, as they took in the prone form before them.

He had no idea who they had called but she was definitely no Voldemort.

"Voldemort wasn't his real name." he explained testily.

Dolohov pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a searing headache coming on. He was never going to hear the end of this. They had wanted the dark lord, deatheater extraordinaire, but instead he'd brought back a small light haired doll from beyond the veil.

Rabastan looked around them warily, wand clutched tightly in his fist. It was well past the bewitching hour and they had made more than enough noise to draw suspicions should anyone be passing close by the death chamber.

"There's always the possibility that he...changed forms on the other side." he suggested, ignoring their disdainful looks. "No one has ever come back, who are we to say this isn't him?"

"Welp, we'll never know unless we wake her." Thorfinn said decisively through an indecisive shrug. He looked around at the others, all squatted around the woman's unconscious body and when no one argued, cast a quick revive spell.

It took but a moment to work, her eyelids began fluttering, limbs moving erratically as if she were having a bad dream. Then two dark orbs burst open and a scream pierced their eardrums. All four men fell backwards, hands over their ears. The only light in the room had been from the tips of their wands and when they fell the room also fell into darkness. Scrambling around in the darkness, feeling for their wands, the men heard movement, then footsteps.

"Where's my wand?"

"Fuuuuuuuck!"

Running footsteps.

"Found it! Lumos!" Rabastan called at the same time they heard a squeak followed by a thump.

The deatheater's scrambled to their feet and jogged around the dais, finally coming to a halt at the front where the woman was just getting back to her feet. It was silent for a long moment as they observed the woman and she them, the little they could in the dim lighting. Her waist long white-blonde hair floated ethereally around her body in stark contrast to the black of her foot length burial gown. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she was up on the balls of her feet as if ready to flee again.

"We're not going to hurt you." Dolohov assured her in his calmest voice, or what Thor called his 'bedroom voice', despite his hatred of the reference.

"What's your name love?" Thorfinn asked softly as he took a knee and inched as close as he dared to the edge.

The first reply that lit up her mind was the truthful one, but she stopped herself before it could even move her lips. They had called for 'Riddle', not her. Would they send her back if she wasn't that person? Of course they would, clearly they weren't just out fishing for souls. This had been the first time she'd ever seen the curtain and quite possibly the last. Oh gods, her mind labored as her heart kicked up wildly, she couldn't go back to that soul sucking place, not ever. Giving up her birth name was truly a small price to pay.

Morals be damned, Eleanora would be whomever she had to to escape the void even, "Riddle."


	2. Chapter 2

Eleanora pursed her lips to keep the bottom one from quivering as all four men stared at her with varying degrees of incredulousness and disbelief. They were going to throw her back.

"Riddle?" Dolohov demanded, swiftly descending the dais stairs and inserting himself right into her personal space. "You're Tom Riddle?"

Damnit, she cursed herself, of course Riddle was a man, of course! The man before her was tall and well built, contempt just rolling off of his body, but he was nothing compared to what Eleanora had come from. The void had been everything and nothing. It surrounded and smothered but there was no heartbeat, no pulse. Just to think of it made her shudder. She couldn't back down to these men.

"My form is different this time then?" she asked, cocking her head to the side and trying to sound both confused by the change yet confident in her identity.

The wizard brought his wand up to Eleanora's chin and leaned in so close that their noses were almost touching. She swallowed hard as he studied her pitch black eyes and tried with all her might to squelch the budding heat in her palms. Not here, not in front of these men, not with the void mere feet away.

Rabastan was the next to approach the woman, curiosity getting the better of him, and the others soon followed until they formed a half circle before her. Could it really be the dark lord inside the little wisp of a thing before them?

"You're no dark lord." Thorfinn made it sound like a statement but for the first time in his life he felt no surety to back his words up.

This is my last chance, nay my only chance of escape, Eleanora told herself, your life depends on this.

"But clearly I was," she countered, staring into his startling blue eyes. "Else how could I have come forth?"

The only advantage she had was the fact that they didn't truly know what happened on the other side, only she did. Doubt had clearly seeped into their minds.

"How do we know she isn't him?" Rabastan asked quietly. He'd never given much thought to reincarnation but out of all the crazy things that existed in the wizarding world would that truly be out of bounds?

Rodolphus was doing everything but looking at the person that may or may not have been Lord Voldemort. She...he...she was both angelic and demonic at the same time with her light halo of hair and her sinfully dark eyes. Simply put she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Part of him was repelled that she might have been the dark, powerful mastermind he'd once pledged his loyalty to and the other part felt like he was being sucked in and liked it. He felt the distinct urge to throw himself at her feet and pledge his everything no matter who she was.

"Tell me _mistress _Riddle something about your former life." Dolohov challenged. Thorfinn seemed to be on the fence about her, Bast was likely on her side already, Rodolphus was an unknown but Dolohov was nowhere even close to the fence.

Eleanora's palms were growing hotter by the moment, her greatest power being also her greatest nemesis. She'd never been able to control it.

"Regretfully I can't recall a thing but I know I'm Tom Riddle." she looked imploringly into all four sets of eyes. "You called and I was brought forth, is that not proof enough?"

"Fraid not." Thorfinn crossed his arms over his broad chest and shook his head. It was just too fantastical.

"I can't believe that none of you are accepting the possibility that he could have been reincarnated as a she." Rabastan spread his arms and looked around at his dark brethren. "Rod?"

Rod's eyes shifted from the floor to his brother and then to the enigma.

"It's possible." he allowed, his hazel eyes brushing her own for as long as he dared.

"I disagree." Dolohov put a hand to his aching head. He was going to be the laughing stock of the wizarding world.

"I don't know what to fucking think." Thorfinn confessed, running a hand through his tangled blonde locks. He wanted to deny it completely but he just couldn't.

"What are we going to do with her?" Dolohov demanded of the others.

What a fucking mess he'd created. He didn't want to just toss the poor thing back but they couldn't just let her roam free either. She _was _technically dead after all. Being who they were and considering they hadn't been "formally" released from Azkaban, they couldn't afford to draw any extra attention to themselves.

Thorfinn opened his mouth to confess more dumbfoundedness, but stopped short when the woman brought her small hands around to the front of her body. His mouth dropped open, as he was sure the others did as well, as the two fireballs nestled in each of her palms lit up his eyes.

Eleanora could no longer help herself, the dread she felt was without equal and now there was no stopping her body's reaction.

"I won't go back there!" she yelled, too terrified to even cry, and one fiery hand aimed itself towards the great curtain.

As if throwing a ball overhanded she aimed first one fireball, then the other. They lit up the oppressive darkness as they hurled across the chamber, honing in on the veil as if they had minds of their own. In a breath the tattered curtain was engulfed in flames of every vibrant color of the rainbow. The deatheaters spun around, eyes filled with the amazing and terrifying display of exquisite destruction. Ashes in reds, blues and greens floated down like snow from the archway to adorn the dais. The inferno actually brought Thorfinn to his knees, the others like weightless, spineless jelly on each side of him.

Could it be true?

All in all it took less than two minutes for Eleanora's flames to reduce the veil to almost nothing, just soot and ash twice as lifeless than what had come from behind it.

"Did anyone else see that?" Rodolphus murmured, eyes still glued to the baron archway.

Dolohov simply whispered a curse and crossed himself.

"I fucking told you!" Rabastan declared and spun around to face the dark lady. "Oh fuck…"

She was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

It was even better than Eleanora remembered, the moon, the stars, the fresh wafting air. The wind ruffled her hair and her dress, formed goose pimples on her arms and brought every kind of scent to her nostrils. She couldn't recall feeling half so alive the first time around. It was amazing! There was dewy grass beneath her bare feet, tingling and tickling her senses. Eleanora was alive and the world around her was vibrant. Crickets were chirping and trees softly rustling in the breeze. The night air was crisp and clean and she sucked in deep lungfuls greedily, reluctantly exhaling only to take in another cherished breath. And that was only halfway across the lawn.

She should have been hiding or running but all sense of urgency had been whisked away with the wind. Guided by nothing more than wanderlust, Eleanora padded across the lawn and into the road. The small pebbles on the concrete tore at her tender soles but it didn't even phase her. In the void there had been no pain but adversely there had also been no comfort and in a way it felt good to endure pain. The pain was grounding and it solidified that she was indeed a part of the living world. Choosing a direction at random, Eleanora meandered down the street, eyes wide with new old wonders.

* * *

"Where do you think she went?" Rabastan huffed, as they ran through the darkened halls of the department of mysteries.

"Fuck if I know." Dolohov growled back, trying the fourth locked door in a row. Was she locked behind one or had they already been locked?

They needed to find her and get the fuck out before the employees began turning up for work. The curse breaker still had no idea what to make of the creature he'd pulled forth from the veil. He wasn't convinced that she was Voldemort, wasn't sure that she was even a witch proper, but she was definitely something special.

"Well if I was hiding from four idiots, I'd do it outside in the dark and away from the place I didn't want to go back to." Rodolphus wheezed.

Following the exit sign he took a sharp left into the stairwell with the others on his heels. Halfway down the stairs he put one hand on the railing and vaulted himself over the side, landing on his feet near the bottom of the next flight. The deatheater threw open the door which deposited them right across from the rear doors they had "let" themselves in.

"Spread out and search for her. If she won't go willingly just grab her and disapparate. We'll meet back up at the manor." Dolohov ordered as they emerged into the night like bats out of hell, then hissed "colloportus!" at the door, securing it.

"Right, Rab go right, Thor dead ahead, Dolohov around front."

Everyone nodded their affirmation and turned to go.

"Tom!" Rabastan put his hands to his mouth and yelled.

Thorfinn stopped abruptly, catching Rodolphus' eye, who then stopped as well.

"Tom?" Thor whispered, unsure if he was fully on board with the idea of a dark mistress.

Rod shrugged in reply as if to say 'just go with it' and jogged off towards the east side of the building. I'm getting too old for this, he thought, putting a hand over the hitch in his side. Off in the distance he could hear the others tentatively calling out for 'Tom', which made his insides squirm a little.

"Riddle!" he called out instead, voice a dull roar.

His concentration should have been on cleaning up the mess they'd created and disapparating before anyone saw them but all he could think about was, was she or wasn't she? Rodolphus couldn't say for sure why she affected him so strongly but he could say with surety that it made him highly uncomfortable.

Rabastan was admittedly beginning to panic, the dark lord...mistress was powerful and even without a wand could have disapparated by then. What if they'd lost her? The sky was beginning to lighten, the brilliance of the stars fading, they needed to find her and quickly. In an hour or two the square would be filling with testy, overworked witches and wizards and this would be difficult to explain.

But then suddenly there she was, walking slowly down the street as if she were just out for a leisurely walk.

"Tom!" he yelled, heart leaping. Then, "Guys over here!" over his shoulder as he ran after her like his life depended on it.

Eleanora turned slowly to face the voice, fully prepared to fight for her new life, hands already tingling with fire. There was no going back, it wasn't an option. If she went back to the void it would be over her twice dead body. As he neared though she recognized the man as the one who'd spoken up for her and relief flooded her body, along with a tiny wave of guilt. She was a liar, a phony, a scared woman masquerading as a man who must have been important to them.

He stopped abruptly several feet away, hands on his knees and breathing heavily. Off in the distance behind him movement caught Eleanora's eye, it was the other three also running in her direction. She felt sick to her stomach seeing them, heart beating in her throat, and she backed up a little instinctively. Two of them didn't believe her at all and one distinctly wanted to send her back.

"No, no please don't run." Rabastan huffed, reaching for the woman's hand but rethinking it and drawing his hand back when she inched further away.

"I won't go back there." she told him in a deadpan voice and pursed her pale lips together.

The deatheater noticed with trepidation that her hands were wringing and fidgeting together. Part of him wondered how long a fireball to the face would hurt before he perished in flames.

"We're not trying to make you go back." he took a deep breath and straightened back up as the others joined them.

"Use your bedroom voice to calm her." Thorfinn whispered to Dolohov, waving his hand to indicate the wizard should step forward.

"Why do you keep insisting that that's my bedroom voice?" he demanded, forgetting in his annoyance that they were supposed to be putting on a good front.

"Because the only time I hear you use it is around women." Thor replied innocently.

Dolohov sighed, his headache was not going away anytime soon it would seem.

"Maybe it's just my nice voice." he growled testily. "Have you ever thought of that?"

"Mmmm maybe...not convinced."

Dolohov took a few tentative steps closer to the woman so that all three of his companions were behind him and offered a smile.

"Tom, my name's Antonin. Do you remember me?"

Eleanora's eyes narrowed in on him suspiciously.

"I remember you don't think I'm him."

He ran his hand through his thick black hair, cursing himself for having been so blunt earlier, of course she wasn't going to trust him now. Despite Thorfinn's insistence that he had a bedroom voice, Dolohov was no ladies man, he seemed to make them all nervous. The harder he tried, and try he did, the more nervous it made them.

"And he was wrong." Rabastan cut off Dolohov's denial, it wasn't the time for lies.

Eleanora's eyes cut back and forth between the men, woefully regretting not having hidden from them. There was no possible way she could outrun three wizards, armed wizards at that.

"What do you want then?" she asked of the only one that seemed to believe her. He had kind green eyes that smiled when he did and Eleanora wanted to trust him.

"We need to get out of here before all sorts of witches and wizards start filling the square up. If that happens all of us will be in deep shit. We're not supposed to be here anymore than you are, so we just want to take you somewhere safe so we can figure out what's going on."

"He wants to send me back." Eleanora accused, eyes flicking to Dolohov and back.

"Pretty sure you made him change his mind." Thorfinn interjected.

His mother and all her high society training had told him never to argue with a woman. The woman before him had just taught him why.

She couldn't stay where she was, he was right about that. People would see her in her funeral gown and bare feet and ask questions that she didn't have answers to. On top of that where was Eleanora to go? She hadn't any idea how long she'd been gone or if she even had any family left or where she was. Were these men any more untrustworthy than whomever she may come across?

"Well I'm promising you that we're not sending you back." As truthful as he'd been in his entire life, Rabastan looked deep into her eyes and offered his hand and slowly, painfully slow she took it.


	4. Chapter 4

"Been a good few years since he...she apparated." Thorfinn offered with a shrug, nose wrinkled in disgust and quickly used a scrubbing charm on the trash bin Riddle had vomited in.

Dolohov shook his head and turned away, almost ready to heave himself from the sight of it. It _had _been five years since Voldemort's death and a rough trip back through the veil but would that really explain this reaction?

"Rordley!" he called, waiting patiently until the house elf appeared.

"Master called?" the large elf asked, bowing at the waist.

Rordley was a strange elf, bluish in color and almost twice the size of a normal house elf. He'd been as tall as Dolohov when he first joined their family and was the only living creature the man would call himself truly fond of.

"Yes…" he paused briefly, eyes closing when he heard the tell tale sound of another round of vomiting come from the guest room. "Can you please bring some tea and biscuits to the library?"

The elf's eyes shifted to the ornate mahogany bedroom door with pity and nodded.

"Yes master, Rordley will bring." he disappeared with a small pop.

* * *

Eleanora collapsed onto her back on the bed with a sigh and closed her eyes. Despite the roiling of her stomach and her scorched throat, she felt such relief now that she was finally free of her oppressive prison. It was like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The plush mattress felt like heaven beneath her, she couldn't recall sleeping or even lying down and there were certainly no beds in the void. How long had it been since she felt such comfort? They had told her the year, 2003, but no matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn't think of what year she'd come from. But it wasn't just that, there were a lot of things she couldn't remember, like her home and her family or even how old she was. They were there but just vague remembrances like leaves in the wind or fleeting shadows out of the corner of your eye. There were little things like nature, she knew she loved nature but when she tried to call up thoughts about what parts she had loved or why shy loved it, nothing was there. Had the void taken her history along with her life?

The only thing she was distinctly certain of was her name and she'd just given it up.

If she wasn't Eleanora and she wasn't Riddle, who was she and what was she going to do? Unless she could figure out who Tom Riddle was, things were going to get awkward fast, perhaps even dangerous. Eleanora was interfering in their lives, with no shortage of guilt, and gods only knew how they would take it. It hadn't escaped her attention that the one called Rabastan had stated that they weren't supposed to be wherever it was they had been. Were they criminals of some sort? Eleanora took a deep breath to squelch the rising panic that had her hands burning yet again. She could handle this, anything was better than the living death she'd come from, even dealings with criminals.

Knowing that they were waiting, she reluctantly forced herself to rise. There would be time for lounging later, for now she needed to convince her hosts that she belonged there. Eleanora stood before the closet and slowly shuffled through the assortment of summer dresses the elf had poofed into existence. There were fifteen in total, different lengths, colors and adornments, all beautiful in their own right and all very different styles, as if they had come from more than one person's collection. Was there something more to this? Was she supposed to choose a certain one? Yes, she thought with certainty after much thought, there was more to this. A test then, perhaps the first of many.

The first one that caught her eye was ankle length and it fell in pleats alternating yellow and black like a bee. But then there was the red gauzy dress with the gold trim and a small lion in the calf region. After much indecision, Eleanora decided on a lovely dark green, sleeveless dress that fell to her calves in folds with silver lace trimmings. It just felt right.

* * *

"Soooo, I couldn't help but notice, you told her to call you Antonin..." Thor said nonchalantly as he lowered himself into a leather armchair to wait for Riddle or whatever they were calling her now.

Dolohov dropped down beside him with a heavy sigh. The return of this jest almost made him long for prison again where there were no women, so it was rarely used. It started late one night in a pub after too much fire whiskey and a beautiful witch, but when would it end?

"And?"

"And you used your "nice" voice."

Dolohov scowled at his associate's shit eating grin.

"Your point being?"

Thorfinn's nose had been broken at least twice before, he mused, he was hastily earning a third.

"No one calls you that, no man anyway...that _is _your bedroom voice!" Thor declared, pointing an accusing finger at his friend.

The elder deatheater flipped him the bird, thus ending the conversation but not the war. Thorfinn opened his mouth to continue it, there hadn't been any opportunities to use his favorite joke in years after all, but then she was suddenly there, hovering in the doorway and his mind went blank.

Tentatively, Eleanora stepped into the library, feeling nervous and self conscious, but instantly froze when all four sets of eyes turned to her, followed by complete silence. They had been talking about her, of course, what else was there to talk about other than the anomaly from the veil?

"Still think she's not Voldemort?" Rabastan leaned in and hissed at the others. "Out of them all, she chose the dress of slytherin colors." he raised a brow at them in a silent chastising before striding off to meet the hesitant dark lord.

"Do you think she's _really _him?" Thorfinn asked of Rodolphus who was staring at the woman with the strangest look on his face. It was a mixture of admiration and absolute horror.

"It seems so bloody fantastical that it could just be true." he whispered back, eyes still glued on the woman. Voldemort might even have been using a womanly form to test their loyalty. Was he being too paranoid?

"But if she is him and doesn't remember anything it's completely useless." Dolohov pointed out in a hushed voice.

The entire situation was unprecedented to be sure, he couldn't recall ever hearing of someone returning from the veil. It was true, anything could have happened to the dark lord on the other side, including some form of reincarnation. But it defied everything his logical brain could comprehend. Had bringing her back been a stroke of genius or dumb luck?

"We just need to figure out a way to reconnect her with her old self then." Thorfinn mused.

Both men instinctively looked to Dolohov.

"So by we, you mean me, eh?" he asked drolly, even though his mind instantly perked up at the challenge. It meant research and theorizing and making new potions, if he was lucky. "Perhaps I could find a spell or potion." He would need to start researching immediately...after tea, he was hungry.


End file.
